After My Alpha Sold Me to Another Pack

The silver glass bit into my palm as I sawed through the restraints. Five years. Five years of planning this moment, memorizing guard rotations, stealing fragments of broken mirror during the weekly hose-downs. The storm outside Wolf's Bane Asylum screamed louder than the voices in my head—the ones that whispered I was already dead, that escape was just another form of torture.

My wrists burned where the silver touched skin. I didn't care. Pain was an old friend now.

The guard's footsteps echoed down the corridor. I pressed myself against the wall, every muscle trembling from malnutrition and years of wolfsbane injections. My wolf—Luna, she used to be called—hadn't spoken in so long I'd almost forgotten her voice. The dormancy was complete. I was just a shell now, a broken omega who'd once been something more.

When he opened the cell door, syringe in hand, I moved on instinct. The glass shard found his throat before he could cry out. His blood was warm on my hands. I didn't feel guilty. I didn't feel anything.

The forest swallowed me whole. Rain lashed my face as I ran, barefoot and bleeding, through territory I once knew like the back of my hand. Blood River Pack land. Home. The word tasted like ash.

Maybe Greyson had realized the truth by now. Maybe he'd spent five years regretting what he'd done, searching for me, ready to fall to his knees and beg forgiveness. The hope was pathetic, but it kept my legs moving when everything else screamed to just lie down and let the cold take me.

I collapsed at the border just as music drifted through the trees. Laughter. Celebration. The Luna's Blessing festival—I'd organized that event for eight years, back when I was Luna, back when I mattered.

Hands grabbed me before I could crawl forward. Warriors. Their faces twisted with recognition and disgust.

"The mad rogue," one spat. "Alpha warned us she might come back."

They dragged me through the crowd. Pack members I'd once protected, once healed, once loved—they all stepped back like I carried plague. The festival lights blurred together, too bright after years of darkness. At the center of it all sat a throne I'd never seen before, draped in white silk and moonflowers.

And on that throne sat Camille.

My sister glowed. Her skin was perfect, her dress immaculate, her hand resting on a rounded belly that hadn't been there five years ago. She looked like everything I'd once been, everything I'd lost. The Luna crown—my crown—sat on her golden hair.

Beside her stood Greyson.

He looked older. Harder. His jaw was set in that way that meant his mind was made up, that nothing I said would matter. But I had to try. I had to.

"Water," I rasped. My voice cracked from disuse. "Please."

Camille's eyes went wide. She pressed a hand to her belly and recoiled, her chair scraping backward. "She's here to kill my baby! Greyson, she's going to kill our pup!"

The crowd gasped. Murmurs rippled through the pack like poison.

"No," I whispered. "No, I just—"

"SUBMIT."

The Alpha tone hit me like a physical blow. My knees buckled. My face slammed into mud that tasted like copper and shame. Every bone in my body screamed to obey, to flatten myself further, to disappear into the earth.

Greyson's boots appeared in my line of vision. Expensive leather, polished to a shine. I used to polish those boots. I used to do everything for him.

"I could kill you," he said, his voice carrying across the silent crowd. "It would be easy. Merciful, even. But mercy is for wolves who deserve it."

He crouched down. His face was inches from mine, but there was no recognition in his eyes. No love. No regret. Just cold, absolute disgust.

"You're not worth the effort of execution."

Something cold and heavy clamped around my neck. Metal. Rusted iron that reeked of old blood and older suffering. The collar clicked shut with a sound like a coffin closing.

"From this moment forward," Greyson announced, standing and addressing the pack, "this creature has no rank. No name. No rights. She is property, gifted to Luna Camille as a personal servant. If she disobeys, if she speaks without permission, if she so much as looks at my mate wrong—you have my permission to discipline her as you see fit."

The crowd cheered.

Camille rose from her throne, one hand still cradling her belly. She walked toward me with slow, deliberate steps. When she reached me, she bent down, her lips brushing my ear.

"Welcome home, sister," she whispered, so soft only I could hear. "I've been waiting for you."

Her smile was the cruelest thing I'd ever seen.